At first glance, Toddy Walters appears to be a walking dichotomy. With a sweet and subdued demeanor, a penchant for singing torch-like songs of drama and desperation in the Kate Bush vein, and a clear focus on her musical vision, she’s not easily pegged as the voice behind the drunken…
Is it retro electro, neo electro or electroclash, the phrase New York DJ/producer Larry Tee coined to describe it? Whatever the name, the sound is beginning to vibrate across the same underground scene currently eating up the analog offerings of the Vines, the Hives and the Strokes. The vibe is…
Earlier this year, Celeste Krenz and her husband, Bob Tyler, surrendered their spot as one of Colorado’s country-music power couples and moved to Nashville — the revered as well as derided epicenter of the twang-centric universe. Now they’re part of a community that’s powered almost entirely by the music-minded, from…
If you’re under 45, the romance of the West probably doesn’t resonate with you all that much. Hopalong Cassidy might have been your father’s or uncle’s childhood obsession, Bonanza was something you watched in reruns amid the dregs of Sunday-morning TV, and Gene Autry is a fading cultural landmark. For…
“Have you ever been alone after the party under the blue light?/Wondering where it all went?/Your youth, patience, sanity?” So begin the conversational lyrics to a slow, bombastic ditty called “Chasing the Dragon” — one of the more reflective moments on an otherwise loud and rabid batch of punk tunes…
There are people who walk through a door and on pops the spotlight — heads turn, glances flash, and the air crackles with the presence of an electric personality. And then there’s Patrick Porter. He sort of ducks into rooms, squirming around people’s stares as if they were security-system laser…
Are you one of those people who charge around town with a “Real Musicians Have Day Jobs” sticker on the back of his car? Good for you. Instead of slapping on “Pave the Planet” or “No Fat Chicks,” you’ve opted for a printed slogan that hits a worthy target: all…
To hear the group tell it, the Ground Zero Movement has already infiltrated far-flung corners of the globe. “We’re on five different continents right now,” explains Sid Fly, one of the four charismatic MCs who share mike time in the Denver-based rap collective. “You can’t really count Antarctica. They ain’t…
Tori Amos has finally managed to synthesize her two musical personas: the quirky-pants, piano-bench-humping cornflake girl singing about frogs named Jethro on her toes, and the older, wiser diva-in-training flirting with a more ethereal electronic sound, backed by a full band. Scarlet’s Walk not only displays Amos’s musical maturation, but…
“I ain’t ever satisfied,” Steve Earle sang back in 1987. Fifteen years later, the singer once tagged “the Hillbilly Bruce Springsteen” is seething with post-9/11 anger and discontent. In the press notes to Jerusalem, his most politically charged album, Earle writes, “This is a political record because there seems no…
Sometimes too much caffeine can be a horrific thing: the shakes, the jerks, that vicious nervousness that boils your intestines in adrenaline, blood rushing so hot you can feel your veins sweat. Listening to Get Hustle (appearing Wednesday, December 4, with V for Vendetta at Monkey Mania, 2126 Arapahoe Street)…
When Boulder’s Tom Steenland formed the Starkland imprint in 1992, there was real doubt as to whether he’d still be in business even a year later, since he was drawn to musical esoterica of the sort that’ll never be featured on MTV. But he’s managed to survive a full decade,…
There was really nothing Backwash wanted to do more than spend the evening in an animal suit. Fortunately, the Warner Bros. publicist understood why I so desired to be among the fuzzy, dancing bears — and frogs, cheetahs, orangutans, unicorns and skunks — who joined the Flaming Lips on stage…
Nobody likes a whiner. And yet a whole troop of emo crybabies, from Dashboard Confessional’s Chris Carraba to Bright Eyes’ Connor Oberst, has whimpered its way into the spotlight over the past couple of years. Mike Kinsella, otherwise known as Owen (appearing Tuesday, November 26, at Club 156 in Boulder),…
After falling some thirty feet off a windmill and landing on his head, Maraca Five-O rhythm guitarist Matt Stemwedel sustained a serious brain injury, which kept him comatose for three days last June. Following months of extensive physical therapy, the local surf rocker is slowly re-emerging as his old, wily…
Denver’s Honky Tonk Hangovers play some of the twangiest music this side of Bakersfield, but they purposefully avoid the “C” word when describing their sound lest they scare folks away. That’s how far mainstream country music has strayed from its hillbilly roots. “We don’t even advertise ourselves as a country…
Besides the phenomenal writing of Knut Hamsun, the postcard-perfect fjords, an advanced garment system known as lusekofte and some of the world’s best-tasting salmon, what can Norway really boast about to the rest of the world? The invention of the cheese slicer? The paper clip? Blueberry soup? Graciously hosting Tonya…
These two groups, who share the bill on Friday, November 15, at the 15th Street Tavern, aren’t taking popular music to places it’s never been. Far from it: In many respects, the Warlocks and the Greenhornes are throwbacks to a long-ago time when rock and roll was more about making…
“And love, like a versified cliche, came down on me/Hard, in its casual way,” wrote militant black poet LeRoi Jones in 1962. “Versified cliche,” of course, could be considered an apt description of pop music — that is, until Smokey Robinson got his hands on it. The Miracles’ music was…
The last thing that you expect to hear on a Mudhoney song is a lone saxophone staggering through the psychedelic mist of hippie-dippy organs, twittering electronica and slow-burn guitar rumble. Yet thar she blows in meandering amplitude on “Baby, Can You Dig the Light?” the extended opening salvo of the…
Aubrey Collins is feeling a little tired when I call her on a Friday morning, and it’s easy to understand why. Yesterday she woke up with a sore throat and a sniffle — nothing serious, but the kind of thing that can throw your day when your life revolves around…
Blasting out of late-’70s Los Angeles like the most righteous Santa Ana wind ever, X blew the smog-and-pot-addled minds of hippies and metalheads alike. The fierce foursome’s post-Raymond Chandler, pre-James Ellroy snapshots of L.A. despair and absurdity allowed landlocked daydreamers everywhere to figuratively stand at the corner of Hollywood and…
